


in my arms

by WatchforWitches



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Late Night Conversations, Light Angst, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Sharing a Bed, oops only one bed, post epi 125
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 19:34:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29459061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WatchforWitches/pseuds/WatchforWitches
Summary: Directly after the events of 125, Fjord Jester and Cad go to the other room to sleep and of course, there are only 2 beds.Sleepy heart to heart ensues.
Relationships: Fjord/Jester Lavorre
Comments: 6
Kudos: 63





	in my arms

**Author's Note:**

> I am not above writing in my own self-indulgent fjorester scene, so I hope you enjoy this little post-episode fic!

“I think we can figure this all out in the morning,” Caduceus yawns, looking at the stones and rings being passed around their little circle, “We all desperately need sleep.” 

“Agreed,” Yasha mummers, looking not subtly towards Beau, “Let’s sleep.” 

“Alright,” Beau agrees, “I managed to get two rooms, so there is this one and the one across the hall,” she gestures towards the heavy wooden door. “So, me, Yasha, Veth, and Caleb can stay in this bigger room, and Jester, Fjord, and Cad can go to the smaller one.” 

Fjord looks to Jester at this suggestion, not wanting to make her uncomfortable, ready to suggest a change to the plan, “Well I mean-” 

“That’s fine with me,” Jester says at the same time and looks to Fjord as they speak together, “Unless-” 

“No yeah that works for me,” Fjord quickly clarifies, not wanting her to take his initial reaction in any type of way. 

Caduceus barely contains a smirk at the awkward interaction before he stands up and nods to everyone, “Well, goodnight everyone.” 

Fjord scrambles to his feet to follow, “Yes goodnight all.” 

“Night guys!” Jester hops up after them, waving to everyone as the trio leaves the room. 

“I for one am excited to get a good night of rest,” Caduceus says through a yawn, opening the door to their room for the night. 

It’s at that moment that Fjord realizes his mistake or Beauregard’s scheming, he can’t be sure which it is. The other room was much bigger, with several beds comfortable enough to sleep four very easily. This room was much smaller, clearly meant for a much smaller number or perhaps a more intimate grouping. The room is little more than the small window to the outside, and two wooden bedframes holding up two mattresses. While the beds were fairly large, there were only two of them, and there were three of them, so the numbers didn’t match up. 

It wasn’t that they weren’t used to sleeping in close quarters. The dome while nice isn’t really big enough for everyone, and generally they are all pressed pretty close in sleep. But there was definitely a difference between sharing sleeping space on the ground and sharing a bed, especially seeing as Jester and he were- well, he wasn’t sure, but Beau had mentioned dating earlier and that seemed to be the general consensus amongst the group. 

Fjord seemed to be the only one to take pause at this though, as Caduceus and Jester were already well into the room, placing their various items down and shedding the outer layers of warm clothes that they were all becoming accustomed to. It made sense for Caduceus to take the one bed, sure they were large but Caduceus wasn’t small by any means, and a night of not having to curl into himself would no doubt be a reprieve for his spine. As it stood he got ready and under the heavy blanket before Fjord could even think to step inside and close the door. “Well, I am exhausted. Goodnight you two.” 

“Night Caduceus!” Jester replied, busying herself by untying her hair from the intricate braiding. 

Fjord shook his pause away and nodded to his friend who was no doubt already asleep, “Night Cad.” And with that was left in a semblance of alone time with Jester, which made him feel both contented and terrified. 

“I can sleep on the floor,” Fjord offered once he joined Jester on the far side of the room. “I really don’t mind.” He was trying to sound as nonchalant as possible, well aware that he seemed to be missing it by a mile or so. It was always so difficult for him to act normal around her, she seemed to bring out some deep nerves in him that nothing else quite did. 

“Don’t be silly,” Jester smiled at him, “I don’t mind. We sleep next to each other all the time, and the floor looks really uncomfortable Fjord.” She shook her hair out then, momentarily mesmerizing him with the way it fell around her horns and down her back. 

“Alright,” he agreed easily, admittedly not wanting to spend another night sleeping on the ground, although he would if she had asked him, or if she wanted for him too. 

He got ready for bed meticulously, slowly removing his thick coat and several layers of vests, toeing off his boots and leaving them at the edge of the bed. Once he was left in his pants and light low sleeve he folded his clothing properly and left the pile on a chair. He looked to the still empty bed, then up to where Jester was still brushing through her hair with her fingers, her own heavy clothes forgone for her own simple pants and a white undershirt. “You’re being awkward,” Jester laughed quietly at him. 

He felt a blush rise on his face at both the truth of her statement and the way her small laugh made his heart constrict. He had always had a certain amount of flustered awkwardness around Jester, especially recently. It was something he couldn’t seem to outrun or grow out of. “Sorry,” he chuckles, shaking his head and climbing under the covers of the bed. 

“It’s cute Fjord, don’t worry,” she laughed, turning to place her coat over the same chair as his clothes and moving to get into the other side of the bed. 

_ My clothes are going to smell like her tomorrow _ , is the only coherent thought he can seem to come up with at the moment, which was stupid seeing as she was less than 2 feet of space away from him in the bed. “Can I ask you something?” she whispers in the space between them, head nestled on the pillow, turned to face him. 

“Sure,” he replied, turning to face her fully as well.

“Are you worried about everything?” Her brow creases, “Like actually worried?” 

“Honestly?” He responds, “I try not to think about it. I think it’s easier to just, you know, do. It’s like if I stop and really think about what we are up against? That’s when I worry.” 

Jester nodded at this, looking away from him and down to the blanket around her. “I’m just worried about my mama, you know? What if something really really bad happens Fjord? What if I never see her again?” 

“Hey,” he shakes his head, reaching out a hand to brush the hair from her face, “Don’t think like that Jessie. We aren’t doing this alone, we’ve got a lot of powerful shit right? I won’t let anything bad happen to you, your mom would kill me. And we’re going to Nikodranas tomorrow, you’ll get to see her then, and you’ll feel better about everything.” 

She smiles at that, nuzzling into his palm ever so slightly before relaxing again. “It’s just scary.” 

He remembers the way it had felt watching her in the center of the statues, the way her eyes had rolled back for a split second, and the way her body dropped the stonework below her, the way his heart had dropped along with it. Fjord had been through a lot of shit, he had means to keep himself safe or at the very least sane, he had tried his best in the face of everything they had gone up against, but this, he knew, was not going to be easy. The things they had seen so far merely an appetizer for the main course, they had faced so much, and yet it was nothing yet. He’d watched Jester get 5 years of her life leached away, and maybe they had gained something in the wake of it, but when was the cost going to start outweighing the gain? What if it already had? 

“Sorry,” she spoke again, shaking her head, putting on her best small smile that Fjord could tell was faked if not forced. “We should probably just go to sleep.” 

And with that she started to turn herself away from him, burning some panic in his throat at the thought of getting so lost in his own thought he isolated her accidentally. They had both enough time of keeping their fears to themselves, he knew that much. Before she was fully turned, he reached out a hand and grabbed ahold of her arm, gently coaxing her back around to see him. “Jester no,” he spoke then, swallowing the nerves he always felt about saying the wrong things, “You’re right. It’s scary.” He laughed but it was a hallow thing, “I know that I can’t realistically protect you- or any of us- from everything we could face. There are about a million unknowns here that I’m sure keep all of us up at night, wondering if we’ve made the right choices, the right decisions. I don’t really know how to make it less scary.” He let his hand fall from her warm bicep to rest on the bed between them, “But we all have each other, we aren’t alone in this- any of us. Whatever we face, we’re going to do it together. And once we win,” he forced his voice to stay steady, confident in a way he had been slowly learning to be in the face of fear, “We can all retire to some beach island and never go into another fight again.” 

“That sounds nice,” Jester admitted, biting her lip slightly between words, “I just hope we can do it.” 

“We will,” he nodded, sure at that moment that they would, for some reason. “I know it.” 

Jester nods, still slightly frowning, her mind clearly whirring in a million directions. “Just sleep for now,” he told her softly, “Don’t stress yourself out, you’re too tired for scheming.” 

“Thank you Fjord,” she smiles at him, looking up to him from beneath her lashes, eyes glassy and beautiful. “I’ll protect you as well.” 

“You’ve been doing that for a long time,” he told her, realizing now how true it was, how Jester had always had his back from the very start. “Thank you. Truly.” 

“Of course,” she smiled brightly at him. “Can I ask you another question?” 

“‘Course you can,” Fjord nodded, trying to speak lowly in case they were keeping Caduceus up- but based on the small snores coming from the other side of the room that wasn’t the case. 

“Would you hold me? While we sleep?” He can’t tell for sure in the dim light, but he thinks she is blushing as she asks, something unlike her lest she was truly flustered. “I just mean, when we sleep in the dome I usually just put my head on you after you fall asleep and I didn’t know-” 

“Jester,” Fjord interrupts her nervous ramblings, “Of course.” He opens his arms for her, and she slowly turns herself so that her body is nestled comfortably close to his, letting his arms fall around her stomach and waist. She was warm as ever, and it made his insides twist up as she put her head on him, mindful of her horns. “Beau made that joke earlier about us breaking up,” he muttered, not being able to forget about the moment since, even though all the silliness of it, maybe because of it. They got so few moments of pure childlike joy with everyone, it made it stand out more. “It made me realize we haven’t gotten to talk about, well, anything really since that first kiss.” 

“We’ve sort of been busy trying to save the world,” she jokes, glancing up at him, “Just saying.” 

“Yes,” he laughs quietly, “This is true. But I think that makes it more important, these moments like this,” he moves his arms slightly. “I meant when I said I care deeply for you, I do, unlike anyone else.” 

“I feel the same,” she admitted, “I think,” she bit her lip again before continuing, “I never had any idea what it would be like. All the books I read were about people who were strangers, like ships passing that met in the middle for however long. This just felt I don’t know, comfortable? Familiar? It’s like it just makes sense to me,” she looks up to him, “You know?” 

He thinks back to the first time the way he had never truly met someone with as much zest for life, she had always been a constant in his life, it was the same to him. It felt as if this had been inevitable, in some form, he was always going to be by her side one way or another, since that first day. “Yes,” he agrees easily, “I feel the same. I guess what I am trying to say is that I don’t need this to have a label if you don’t want it to, whatever time you spend with me I will be thrilled to have it.” 

“What if I want a label?” Jester asked him, “Like when I introduce you to someone I can’t say  _ ‘this is Fjord, he’s my friend’ _ the way I would with Veth or Beau. What if I wanted to say  _ ‘this is Fjord, he’s my  _ boyfriend _.’  _ Would that be okay?” 

Fjord’s heart admittedly does skip at the phrasing. He had seldom been someone’s boyfriend unless you counted the innocent way children have ‘boyfriends’ and ‘girlfriends’ which Fjord did not. Real relationships were not something he had expertise in, but he was very eager and willing to learn. “Yes Jester, that would be okay. As long as I can introduce you as ‘Jester, my girlfriend’.” 

Jester giggled at the suggestion, “Yeah I like that.” 

“Good, I’m glad.” Fjord runs a hand in a small soothing pattern on her waist, the motion and her warmth easing him to sleep. “I think we should sleep.” 

“I think so too,” Jester said through a yawn, “Goodnight boyfriend.” 

“Night girlfriend,” he chuckled, finally closing his eyes, hoping beyond hope that his confidence in their ability to win wasn’t ill-placed. 

He would very much like to see how this played out

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it! Kudos/Comments/Feedback all welcomed and greatly appreciated, thank you for reading! :)


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